《经济学人》双语：穷与热--今天更穷与明天更热，如何选择？

原文标题：
Climate change
Hard truths about green growth
How misfiring environmentalism risks harming the world’s poor
气候变化
绿色增长的残酷真相
环境保护运动的失误可能会伤害世界贫困人口

The trade-off between development and climate change is impossible to avoid
发展与气候变化之间的取舍是无法避免的

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THANK GOODNESS for the enthusiasts and the obsessives.
感谢那些狂热者和痴迷者。

If everyone always took a balanced view of everything, nothing would ever get done.
如果每个人总是以平衡的眼光看待一切，那么什么事情都做不成。

But when campaigners’ worldview seeps into the staid apparatus of policymaking and global forums, bad decisions tend to follow. That, unfortunately, is especially true in the world of climate change.
但当活动人士的世界观渗透到严肃的政策制定机构和全球论坛时，往往会导致错误的决策。不幸的是，在气候变化领域，这一点尤为真实。

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One example is the effect of global warming on the world’s poorest people.
其中一个例子是全球变暖对世界上最贫困人口的影响。

As the planet heats up, extreme events such as droughts, floods and storms are becoming more common and more severe. Many places are becoming less habitable.
由于地球变暖，干旱、洪水和风暴等极端事件变得越来越常见越来越严重。许多地方变得越来越不适宜居住。

Over the coming decades many vulnerable farmers, from Mali to the Mekong Delta, will find their crops failing more frequently.
未来几十年，从马里到湄公河三角洲的地区，许多脆弱的农民将面临频繁的农作物歉收问题。

And as resources grow scarcer, more fighting will break out.
而随着资源的稀缺，冲突也将会更加频繁。

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Because people are understandably troubled by the idea of climate change forcing poor farmers to leave behind their ancestral lands, an important goal of adaptation spending is to help them stay.
由于气候变化迫使贫困农民离开祖祖辈辈的土地，人们有些于心不忍，因此气候适应支出的一个重要目标是帮助他们守住家园。

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Yet the truth is more complex. The vast majority of displaced people will not cross international borders but move within their own country. By 2050, 50m-216m people could be on the move internally.
然而，实际情况要更加复杂。绝大多数流离失所的人并不会跨越国界，而是在国内流动。到 2050 年，预计有 5000 万至 2.16 亿人在国内流动。

And many will be rural folk moving to cities, where their lives are likely to become better.
许多人口将从农村地区流向市区，这对于他们的生活而言可能是一种好事。

Urbanisation usually aids development, bringing people closer to schools, health care and well-paying jobs, as well as more liberal social norms, particularly for women.
城市化通常有助于发展，使人们更接近学校、医疗保健和高薪工作，以及更自由的社会规范，这些对女性来说尤为重要。

This is not an argument in favour of climate change. But it suggests that one cost-effective and beneficial form of climate-adaptation spending would be helping people move, rather than preserving small farms in ever-harsher conditions.
这并不是支持气候变化的观点。但它表明，一种划算且有益的气候适应支出形式是帮助人们流动，而不是在日益恶劣的条件下保护小农场。

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There is another, more profound, example of the danger of climate groupthink.
还有另一个更深刻的例子来说明气候群体思维的危险。

From the panels of Davos to the pages of newspapers, it is increasingly argued that no trade-off exists between the economic development of low- and middle-income countries and reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions.
从达沃斯论坛的专家小组到报纸的报道，越来越多的人认为，低收入和中等收入国家的经济发展与减少温室气体排放之间无法取舍。

It is because governments and development banks with limited budgets struggle to admit that not all their goals can be reconciled, and that they must therefore choose between them.
有限的预算让政府和发展银行难以接受不能实现所有目标的事实，因此必须在两者之间做出选择。

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Yet choose they must, because the trade-off is in plain sight.
然而，他们必须做出选择，因为取舍是明摆着的。

Growth is the best way to lift people out of poverty and improve average living standards.
经济增长是帮助人们摆脱贫困、提高平均生活水平的最佳途径。

But in the developing world, more growth still leads to more emissions.
但在发展中国家，更多的经济增长仍然导致更多的碳排放。

In other big emerging markets such as Brazil, Egypt and the Philippines, emissions are rising, too.
在巴西、埃及和菲律宾等其他大型新兴市场国家，碳排放量也在上升。

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Many rich-world leaders say they can square the circle by funding green development projects which, in theory, cut emissions and boost growth at the same time. That is true to a degree.
许多发达国家领导人声称，他们可以通过资助绿色发展项目来解决这个难题，从理论上来说，这些项目既可以减少排放，又可以促进经济增长。这在一定程度上是正确的。

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The reality of limited resources worsens the trade-off.
资源有限的现实加剧了取舍困境。

The need to spend money decarbonising big developing economies that already offer citizens reasonable services threatens aid budgets which help pay for things like vaccines and schooling in the poorest parts of Africa.
需要花费资金来减少已经为公民提供合理服务的大型发展中经济体的碳排放，这威胁到了援助预算，而这些预算用于支付非洲最贫困地区的疫苗和教育等项目。

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They lose out, however, when foreign aid and loans come with green strings attached.
然而，当外国援助和贷款附带绿色条件时，这给发展中国家带来了很大困扰。

As well as facing stingier health-care and education budgets, they might find scant funding for expanding a gas-powered electricity grid, even though nobody stands ready to pay for the far greater costs of converting it to a green one.
他们不仅面临医疗保健和教育预算被削减的问题，还难以获得资金来扩展燃气发电网络。尽管没有任何国家愿意援助绿色能源转型的费用。

African governments rightly resent being told to cut emissions rather than help people in desperate need—especially given that Westerners continue to belch carbon.
非洲各国政府被告知要减少排放而不是帮助急需帮助的人们时，他们对此感到不满——特别是想到西方人在继续排放碳。

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As a result, while leaders offer bromides about sustainable growth, an epic fight for resources rages behind the scenes between those who favour development as practised in decades past and those who want the world’s foreign-aid apparatus to turn wholeheartedly towards decarbonisation.
因此，尽管领导人们对可持续发展提出了各种美好的口号，但实际上幕后正展开着一场激烈的资源争夺战。争夺一方是那些支持过去几十年实行的发展方式，另一方则希望全球外援机构全力以赴实现碳减排。

It is a battle over what is worse: a poorer today or a hotter tomorrow.
这是一场比惨游戏：选择今天更穷还是选择明天更热。

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The virtue of hard choices
艰难选择之美

That is an excruciating choice, given the moral force of the argument that the rich world should pay the developing world’s climate bills.
考虑到富裕世界应该为发展中国家的气候账单买单的道德力量，这是一个痛苦的选择。

Global temperatures depend on the stock of carbon in the atmosphere, not the current flow of emissions.
全球气温取决于大气中的碳储量，而不是当前的排放量流动。

On a per-person basis, the rich world has been disproportionately responsible for rising global temperatures and has more capacity to respond to them.
从人均角度来看，发达国家对全球气温上升负相当大的责任，他们也有更强的应对能力。

Poor countries lack the resources to invest to cut emissions or adapt to climate change themselves. Yet relative to the size of their economies, they face the biggest costs.
贫穷国家缺乏资源来投资减排或自适应气候变化。然而，考虑到其经济规模，它们面临着最大的成本问题。

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As with the decision between forestalling or accommodating climate-induced migration, pretending that this choice does not exist helps no one.
就像决定如何处理由气候引起的人口流动一样，假装这种选择不存在对任何人都没有好处。

Limited resources make it essential to squeeze as much value as possible out of what is available.
有限的资源意味着必须充分利用所拥有的资源。

Squeamishness about weighing costs and benefits—stemming from a well-meaning desire to avoid every injustice—gets in the way.
对成本和效益之间的取舍感到犹豫不决--源于善意的愿望去避免任何不公正的行为--这种心态阻碍了进展。

And the consequences of that evasion fall most heavily on those in the greatest need.
而这种逃避的严重后果会落在那些最需要帮助的人身上。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量848左右，有删减）
原文出自：2023年7月1日《The Economist》Leaders版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路

本文翻译整理: Irene

本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）
气候适应支出Climate Adaptation Spending是指政府和其他机构为了应对气候变化而采取的具体行动和投资。它们旨在帮助社区、企业和个人适应气候变化的影响，减少潜在的经济、社会和环境风险，并促进可持续发展。气候适应支出通常包括基础设施改、自然资源保护和恢复、农业和食品安全、健康和公共安全、社区弹性建设、研究和创新等方面。

群体思维Groupthink是指在一个群体中，为了追求一致性和和谐而出现的一种思维模式。当群体成员过于强调团队的凝聚力，不愿意提出异议或批评，导致群体内部出现思维的僵化和局限性。表现为过分乐观和自信、对外界意见的排斥、共性化和集体无意识（个体意愿置于集体意识之上）。为了避免群体思维的影响，群体应该鼓励成员提出异议和批评，积极寻求多样性的意见和观点，并加强对决策过程的审查和评估。这样可以促进更好的决策和避免潜在的错误。

【重点句子】（3个）
As the planet heats up, extreme events such as droughts, floods and storms are becoming more common and more severe. Many places are becoming less habitable.
由于地球变暖，干旱、洪水和风暴等极端事件变得越来越常见越来越严重。许多地方变得越来越不适宜居住。

Urbanisation usually aids development, bringing people closer to schools, health care and well-paying jobs, as well as more liberal social norms, particularly for women.
城市化通常有助于发展，使人们更接近学校、医疗保健和高薪工作，以及更自由的社会规范，这些对女性来说尤为重要。

Growth is the best way to lift people out of poverty and improve average living standards.
经济增长是帮助人们摆脱贫困、提高平均生活水平的最佳途径。